


an on-fire garbage can

by idlesong



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Recreational Drug Use, arson but the harmless kind, implied noren and nahyuck uwu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 05:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15308091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlesong/pseuds/idlesong
Summary: Renjun’s life is one. Donghyuck causes one in his room. It’s a lot to explain.





	an on-fire garbage can

**Author's Note:**

> this is a spinoff/prequel to [every little thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381757) but can be read alone!

(Looking back on it, it’s a supremely stupid story to tell. It’s almost unbelievable how stupid it is, but it’s not like the individual events are unreasonable one after the other. All together the entire ordeal seems like it could have been prevented at any turn, had either of them been in the right mind. Both of them are keen to point fingers at each other if asked whose fault it _really_ was. The correct answer, if someone were to properly interrogate them, would be that it’s both their faults.)

Renjun’s birthday is expected to be spent in a fairly lacklustre fashion, assignments having kept him too busy all week to even think about it. Despite it all, Donghyuck is still determined to do _something_ for the occasion, refusing to let the day pass without showing Renjun the extent of his love.

When Donghyuck had been quiet and shy during frosh week, Renjun offered his camaraderie and quickly went from his floormate to his best friend. And during a party at the end of first semester, Renjun had vented all of his own gratitude towards Donghyuck for their friendship. Their lack of sobriety had definitely contributed to their dissolving into an emotional embrace, followed by a duet to “A Whole New World” on the karaoke machine. With all they had already been through, for all Renjun had done for Donghyuck, he’s adamant that Renjun’s birthday is marked with some type of celebration.

That’s why he’s banging on Renjun’s door with the toe of his shoe now, at a moderate volume but at a rapid enough speed to annoy his friend into answering. Donghyuck had already said happy birthday over lunch of course, handing him a heaping bowl of ice cream and singing to him an obnoxious rendition of the birthday song. It was exactly the kind of gesture Renjun hates to admit he likes. He put Donghyuck into a chokehold as a show of thanks.

Renjun sticks his head out through a crack in the door. His orange hood is pulled over his head, the strings tied into a neat knot. Coincidental. Donghyuck’s own green hoodie strings are also tied into a knot.

“Doing work?” Donghyuck asks, his hands tucked behind him.

“Not anymore,” Renjun says with a shake of his head. “I sent in my report early so I could relax. I’m assuming you’re hiding something behind your back?”

“Yes, of course. I’d prefer to show you what it is once we’re inside, my friend,” Donghyuck says in a manner that is anything but inconspicuous.

Renjun raises a brow at that, but wordlessly steps aside to open the door enough to let Donghyuck in. If there’s anything he’s learned since becoming friends with Donghyuck, it’s that he shouldn’t bother questioning things early on. The vaguest of schemes made themselves clear over time, and it’s much more entertaining to see how they play out. It’s the same on both sides.

Renjun throws himself back into his wheel-y chair, which rolls him backward with dramatic force. “Okay, give it up,” he says.

Donghyuck chucks a small, crudely decorated package into Renjun’s lap. From the looks of it, Donghyuck cut open a paper bag from the dining hall to use as makeshift wrapping paper.

“What is it?” Renjun asks curiously.

There’s a knock on the door that makes the both of them jump. Donghyuck goes to answer it. On the other side, Jeno looks at Donghyuck with confusion, checks the name tag posted to the outside of the door, and stares back at him.

“Is…Renjun here?” Jeno asks. He’s holding a gift bag, tissue paper poking out of it. “This is for him.”

“He sure is!” Donghyuck chirps, taking the bag from Jeno’s hands. “Thanks for stopping by, man. He’ll really appreciate it.”

Although perplexity remains on his face, Jeno merely nods and smiles widely back as Donghyuck closes the door on him.

“A gift for you, my liege.” Donghyuck bows his head as he gives the gift bag to Renjun with two hands. It’s lighter than he imagined now that Renjun feels its whole weight, shaking it gently by its paper handles to hear something bulky shifting inside. He reaches a hand in and pulls out a soft cotton hoodie, navy blue with one red sleeve and one yellow.

“Huh. I wasn’t expecting this,” Renjun comments, holding it up to his own upper body in examination before bringing it up to his face to smell. “He wore this a few weeks ago and I told him I really liked it. He wouldn’t give me his own, right?”

“Probably a new one? It’s not like he’s your boyfriend,” Donghyuck says, laughing at the mere prospect. The increasing amount of time Renjun and Jeno have been spending together lately hasn’t escaped Donghyuck’s attention, but he didn’t think much of it at all.

Renjun laughs too, but for a different reason that he’s not going to disclose to Donghyuck just yet. It’s not for certain, but he’s had the feeling Jeno’s been stealing glances at him when he thinks Renjun’s not looking. If he were to be entirely honest, Renjun doesn’t mind a bit. It isn’t pressing enough to divulge to Donghyuck, not when Donghyuck’s massive crush on Jaemin is something they know for certain.

Once the hoodie’s tossed onto his bed, Renjun hands the tissue paper to Donghyuck to be put in the garbage can and chucks the gift bag under his desk. Maybe he could reuse it.

“I’m opening this now!” Renjun announces, unceremoniously tearing open the paper away and revealing a small ziploc bag. There are two gummy bears inside, significantly bigger than any he’s ever seen before but still no larger than the size of his thumb. Their little jelly faces stare back at him, expressionless.

Renjun likes sweets, but he prefers chocolate to anything else. The occasional packet of skittles too, as well as peanut butter cups if someone’s offering, but no more. It’s a nice gesture, but he’s still confused as to why Donghyuck is being so shifty about it.

“Thanks?” Renjun’s holding the bag up to his overhead light, examining whether there was a key hidden in one of them to begin some elaborate scavenger hunt.

“ _Renjun_ ,” Donghyuck says, and maybe living together as well as spending too much time together has made Renjun far too in tune with every nuance of Donghyuck’s voice, but the tone in which Donghyuck says Renjun’s name makes it all click.

“Oh my god,” Renjun says, realizing. “How? From who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Xuxi,” Renjun replies. “Of course.”

Donghyuck beams. “Exactly. Now c’mon, you deserve it, birthday boy. It’s been ages.”

It had been at _least_ three months since they had last gotten high. That time involved watching _Fantasia_ until both of them were in tears. (Neither of them would own up to the fact that they would cry at that beautiful spectacle of a film regardless of circumstance.)

“One each? Is that enough?” Renjun asks. He isn’t well versed in edibles, aside from one time he had half a cookie, merely out of curiosity. (It was fine. All he did was reorganize his bookshelf in an order no longer comprehensive to him when he sobered up.)

“Definitely. Yukhei emphasized that two is _way_ too many,” Donghyuck says with a nod.

“I wanna know the story behind that,” Renjun says.

“What makes you think there is one?” Donghyuck asks.

Renjun narrows his eyes. “It’s _Xuxi_ ,” he responds simply.

“Valid,” Donghyuck says. “Have one already. I’ve been waiting for days to give you this.”

Renjun tears open the plastic with his teeth. “I call the green one.”

 

Winter just recently turned over into spring, but it hardly feels like it. Renjun almost always keeps his window open regardless, the hinges opening out into a courtyard where some nocturnal individuals could be seen in deep contemplation on the still icy benches. They’re either insomniacs or stoners who can’t be bothered to walk a little further out to the park.

Once, when he and Donghyuck were feeling truly lazy and it was too cold to go outside, they tried their best to discreetly smoke a bowl by the open window. It wasn’t nearly as stealthy as they wanted it to be, but they only did it knowing Jaehyun was the only RA on rounds. If Jaehyun thinks _he’s_ being secretive about his own stoner habits, Donghyuck and Renjun have a mountain of evidence to differ. They were betting on the hopeful notion that he wouldn’t bust his own students for the same thing.

Right now though, in accordance with the kind of gelatinous heaven these gummy bears came from, Renjun is ready to convert to whatever faith would allow him to enter their domain. It’s been so long since he’s last felt this way that he can only concentrate on the joy of it. Very light, but not entirely weightless either. Aware that he’s on solid ground but also buoyant, like he’s a tied down helium balloon.

He and Donghyuck are sitting on his bed and floor, respectively, heads tilted back to rest against the nearest upright surface and their mouths agape. Momoland’s most recent track has been on loop for the past twenty minutes, and Renjun swears the song’s tempo changes with every listen. He’s been meaning to get up and change it but he’s become deeply involved in the repetition and what it _means_.

“Hey,” Donghyuck says, propped up against the wall opposite to the one Renjun’s head is resting against. “Does this song sound different to you every time?”

“Yeah!” Renjun sits up, wobbles for a moment, leans back once more. “Does it not seem slower right now?”

“I wanna listen to Dumb Dumb next and see if it does the same thing,” Donghyuck says, staring at the ceiling with an inexplicable calmness. Neither of them move to do anything, but once this loop ends, surely enough, the chorus of _dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb_ comes in.

Startled, Renjun’s eyes widen. “Holy shit. Spotify heard us. Do I have Alexa?”

“No, dumbass. I changed it from your phone. You know, the one you gave me to order UberEats because you couldn’t figure out the buttons?” Donghyuck holds up said phone to show Renjun, who had forgotten he did such a thing until this very moment.

“Wait, when are our burritos coming then?” Renjun asks, prompting Donghyuck to look down at Renjun’s phone to check their order’s progress.

Donghyuck glances back up at him with nervous laughter. “I forgot to place the order.” Immediately afterward he’s hit square in the face with one of Renjun’s pillows and for once he’s inclined to believe he deserved it.

“Forget it. Let’s just go to McDonalds later,” Renjun sighs.

“It’s so cold outside, dude,” Donghyuck complains.

“Have you ever let anything get in the way between you and chicken nuggets? Stop talking nonsense, Donghyuck.”

“Can you at least close the window? There’s still _snow_ on the ground,” Donghyuck says. “I’m about to light a campfire in your room.”

“Bet.” Renjun scoots closer to the edge of his bed and kicks his garbage can, which does a few twirls until reaching Donghyuck’s side in a feat of accuracy. It’s unsurprising to them both, actually. Somehow being high heightens the usually poor hand-eye coordination Renjun possesses. Once the two of them played a game of darts while high and hollered at every one of Renjun’s consistent bullseyes. Donghyuck was a step away from losing his damn mind.

Donghyuck stares down the garbage can, the white tissue paper on top tantalizing him as it bristles, the breeze gently flying by. It already mimics the flicker of flames, and Donghyuck has the very, very strong urge to put some colour to the image.

He raises his hand to blindly search for the lighter he knows to be on Renjun’s desk, there for no mischievous uses but the occasional lighting on an illicit candle because he likes the smell of lavender. This candle is, amazingly, the only thing that’s gotten Renjun a warning from Jaehyun. On one hand, he feels fortunate that Jaehyun will turn a blind eye to most things so long as they’re not doing anything dangerous, but on the other, it’d be nice to get some _recognition_ for all the effort they put into their debauchery.

Having tracked this thought until its end, Renjun only just notices the small quivering flame resting on top of his garbage can. Donghyuck stares it down for another second before blowing it out.

The both of them watch the burnt paper crackle for another moment. Donghyuck lights it again. Renjun doesn’t say anything. “Dumb Dumb” is still playing in the background. It is well-suited for the moment.

This time the flame grows larger than before, reaching further down the basket before Donghyuck blows it out again. The process repeats itself thrice more, risking more in its size but always being stamped out of existence before it grows too large to handle. Renjun begins to wonder just how much tissue paper is left in his wastebasket before he gets his answer.

None at all. Renjun knows this, and Donghyuck knows this, because all of a sudden the contents in the garbage can go up into flames. It takes them several moments to register the urgency needed in this situation because they’re too busy observing the fire with eerie concentration. Renjun wonders what was below all the tissue paper. Probably the orange peels from his post-dinner snack.

“Holy shit,” Donghyuck says, slowly getting to his feet.

Unhelpfully, Renjun drops to lie on his back and ignores the fire entirely. He’s too concentrated on thinking about whether orange peels are flammable. They must be, right? Maybe anything is flammable if you try hard enough.

“Wow…Donghyuck, fire is so strong,” Renjun mumbles, staring at the ceiling. If he turns his head to the left he can just catch the orange colour of his waste basket on the window’s reflection. “It just destroys shit. No mercy. That’s how we are sometimes too, you know? We’re just hurting each other. Hurting fire too. Firefighters, that’s their job…”

“Please sit up.”

Renjun complies, and Donghyuck is putting a black garbage can into his hands. It is slightly warm on the outside. Looks much hotter on the inside. Renjun yelps and shoves it back to Donghyuck. “Why are you giving me this?!” he practically screams.

“It’s quiet hours!” Donghyuck hisses in the loudest whisper ever known to humankind.

“Don’t give this to me, it’s not mine!” Renjun yells back. “Put it away!”

“How?!” Donghyuck asks. “It’s your garbage can!”

“It’s your fire!” Renjun asserts. “Fuck, I don’t know what to do. What do we do?!”

Donghyuck looks around the room, locates Renjun’s kettle, and pops open the lid to see that it’s empty. “I’ll go to the bathroom. You just, uh, maybe balance it by the window.”

“God, I hate you so much right now. But go.” Renjun is scrambling to his knees, very carefully holding the garbage can by its warming plastic exterior as Donghyuck hurries to the door.

“I love you, dude!” Donghyuck calls before leaving.

“I hate you so much, I will rue our friendship until my final days,” Renjun calls back. “My final days, Donghyuck!” There is a fire in his hands, as well as a vengeful one in his heart.

 

Renjun sits in silence as he waits for Donghyuck, one of his slippers wedged into the door to keep it open for Donghyuck’s speedy return. The on-fire garbage can is still in the room, or at least two-thirds of it is, the lid of the basket and the flames facing out into the courtyard. Renjun is very, very worried that some drifter on an icy bench is about to look up and see something concerning.

It’s absurd, Renjun thinks, how calmly he must sit on the edge of his bed as the black plastic of his once-beloved garbage can slowly melts away into a fiery abyss. Does this mean he has to go the rest of the year without one? He could get his own, he supposes, but what would happen at the end of the year when there’s one university-approved trash receptacle unaccounted for?

Giving Jaehyun any explanation of this whole debacle would be a mess. Renjun would rather just tell him he chucked it out the window for fun.

Donghyuck stumbles back in with the kettle’s lid still open, spilling some water onto Renjun’s floor in the process. Renjun would complain but there are so many other things to be upset about at the moment, like the fucking on-fire garbage can in his window. His head is also throbbing a bit, just as an additional annoyance.

“You deal with it, I don’t even want to look at it right now,” Renjun says, getting up and away from his bed to leave space for Donghyuck.

As Donghyuck toes off his own shoes to get onto Renjun’s bed, there’s a knock on the door that makes the both of them curse in unison.

“Who the fuck is that?” Donghyuck hisses at Renjun, who makes an intelligible noise of annoyance back at him.

“How am I supposed to know?” Renjun asks through bated breath before shuffling over to his door and opening it the slightest bit, only enough to have half his face peeking through the crack.

“Hey. We got a noise complaint. Someone heard some screaming?” Johnny the RA says. Renjun only knows his name because he supervises Mark’s floor and Mark would never stop talking about Johnny for as long as he lived, probably. The other RA, who Renjun thinks is named Taeyong, smiles at him amiably.

“Yeah, uh, I stubbed my toe. Really badly. It was my fault. Sorry about that. Won’t happen again.” Renjun compounds all of his curt sentences with surely-to-be-perceived-as-shifty glances over his shoulder, wondering whether Donghyuck had finished his crucial task yet.

“Is everything okay?” Taeyong asks, with genuine concern and the hunch that Renjun is blatantly lying.

“Um, yeah. I promise I won’t make any more noise. Yeah. Good night,” Renjun says, before shutting the door with haste. He might be getting a talk from Jaehyun about the suspicious encounter later, but he would worry about that when he got there. When Renjun whips his head around to see if Donghyuck’s done the nefarious deed, his friend has an uncomfortable smile on his face that makes Renjun’s migraine worsen instantly.

“It, uh.” The kettle is still in Donghyuck’s hands, the slight strain visible in his wrists making Renjun assume the worst has happened. “It fell.”

“It fell?” Renjun repeats, already thinking of a patch of dirt in which he could bury his belief in Donghyuck as a person and a friend. “How did it fall?”

“I was trying to put the fire out but I lost my balance and knocked the trash can out of the window. By accident.” Donghyuck adds the last two words as though they would resolve the situation, but Renjun can only begin to panic wondering which poor civilian has had a flaming garbage can dropped on their head.

“Oh my god,” Renjun whispers.

“The fire went out though,” Donghyuck clarifies. “It went out before it hit the ground. Problem solved, right?”

“We have to go get it,” Renjun sighs. “It has my room number on it.”

 

To Renjun and Donghyuck’s absolute horror, there are two shadowy figures in the courtyard by the time they make it down themselves, huddled around what Renjun hopes to god isn’t (but knows in his heart of hearts to be) his melted hunk of a garbage can.

“Fuck, do you think those are RAs?” Donghyuck asks in a hushed whisper.

“If they are, say bye-bye to our dorm,” Renjun says. “I’m not going down without taking you with me.”

“That’s fair, as long as you let me tell Jaemin I want to kiss his face before they take us away.”

“You get to do _no_ such thing.”

One of the figures, much taller in height, lifts their head and turns around. Renjun breathes a sigh of relief. It’s Yukhei.

“Yo! Renjun, did you do this?” Yukhei calls out as the two approach. Upon getting closer, Renjun sees that the person with Yukhei is Mark. Thank goodness, he thinks, until he remembers that Mark lives in the room directly below his.

“That depends. What is it exactly?” Donghyuck asks in a tone much higher than usual.

“I think it’s a garbage can?” Mark’s hands are stuffed into the pockets of a windbreaker that Renjun wishes was thin enough to compel him to go inside already. It’s not that he thinks either of them are snitches, but Mark respects Johnny too much to lie if asked directly, and Yukhei just doesn’t seem particularly good at keeping secrets.

“Then yeah. It’s mine,” Renjun admits.

“Was it…on fire when it fell?” Mark then asks. After sharing a look with Donghyuck, Renjun nods.

“Okay good,” Yukhei says, breathing out a sigh of relief. “We were in Mark’s room when I saw the thing fall and all of a sudden I was like, ‘Dude, a fireball just flew past your window!’”

“And obviously I didn’t believe him but we wanted to check it out,” Mark says. Renjun would laugh if he didn’t want to cry.

“Yeah, it’s been a very strange night. Time for bed, don’t you think?” Donghyuck politely shoves himself past Mark and Yukhei to get to the garbage can, which no longer qualifies as such with how much contorted it’s become. “We’ll handle this. Please don’t tell anyone.”

Mark and Yukhei look at them strangely, although it’s an entirely valid response, but make to leave before Yukhei addresses them once more as they walk away.

“Did you like the gummy bears, by the way?”

“Yep, they were great, thanks!” Donghyuck calls back as Renjun wonders how to hurdle himself, Donghyuck, and their melted plastic child into the sun.

 

“It kind of looks like an art project,” Donghyuck comments as Renjun lifts the lid of the public garbage bin and dutifully ignores him. “Like some conceptual think-piece about our overuse of plastic in capitalistic society or something.”

Renjun hates this park, hates having to walk through it every time he needs to get to class, and hates being forced to pass the meanest squirrels in the universe who for some reason are never compelled to hibernate even in the coldest of months. If some of there are here right now, Renjun would like them to know that he’s officially surrendered to the whims of nature and they may do with him as they please.

“So that’s done,” Donghyuck says with sheepish laughter. “Kinda killed our buzz, huh?”

“I’m so tired. I want to go home,” Renjun sighs. It’s too cold out here to only be in a hoodie, but neither of them even thought to bring a jacket in the chaos of their situation.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to do something fun for your birthday,” Donghyuck says meekly. Renjun sighs again, knowing the apology to be sincere. It’s appreciated, but it’s not enough to resolve the tension in his shoulders from the events that just took place.

“I know, but let’s just, I don’t know, pass out watching anime next year,” Renjun says, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“We could still do that. There’s two hours left of your birthday. Plenty of time to get a head start on passing out.” Donghyuck offers up a smile that Renjun returns despite himself.

“Fine,” Renjun agrees, extending his arm to wrap it around Donghyuck’s shoulder. It’s for the affection of the gesture itself, but also for the body warmth he desperately needs. “But we’re sleeping in your room. Mine is going to need to air out for at least a night.”

“Maybe a few. Burning plastic leaves _quite_ the smell behind,” Donghyuck says.

“For your birthday, I’m going to launch you into space,” Renjun says.

“Understood,” Donghyuck nods. “Happy birthday, Renjun.”

**Author's Note:**

> _“I’m no snitch,” Jaemin says. “I only called the RAs on you one time because you and Renjun were screaming in the middle of the night. I thought something had gone wrong.” Donghyuck just laughs nervously at that, having tried very hard for a long while to forget about the time when he accidentally set fire to a trash can. It was so embarrassing that he would prefer not to tell Jaemin, at least not yet._
> 
> when i wrote those lines in every little thing i committed myself to writing this too so hooray to fulfilling past me's demands?? i've been wanting to write more dreamies fic and i have plans but if you have any headcanons you'd like to share do please drop me a cc. uwu
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/ten7s) | [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/idlesong) | [wip list](http://sihyun.carrd.co#wip)


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